Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

That is a very good question, but I cannot really answer it. My reading of government Amendment 46G indicates that there is a copying in of what had happened with forced marriage. Furthermore, paragraph (7) of the proposed new schedule in the amendment amends the Family Law Act and gives jurisdiction to the family court. I may be talking complete rubbish and I may be corrected, either by the noble Baroness or by the Minister. I am simply trying to get across why the civil route is so important and the use of family courts is so important.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I shall pick up that point. It is perfectly obvious to me as a former president of the Family Division that it does not matter which piece of legislation it is as long as the work done in relation to female genital mutilation is allocated to the single family court and heard either by High Court judges or circuit judges who are ticketed to try family cases. This is really not for the ordinary civil judges in what was the county court.

I am interested by this talk about the High Court or the county court. We should actually be talking about—I say this respectfully to the Government—the single family court. It does not matter whether it goes into the Family Law Act as is suggested in the excellent opposition amendments, which I largely support. What matters is who actually tries it. Just as with forced marriages and every other child protection issue, we have here issues of crime, but we know perfectly well that there has not yet been a single conviction of anyone who has done this. It is a question of culture, too. One has to train people in this country that this is not an acceptable practice. The Government are to be enormously congratulated for working on that—as were the previous Government when introducing the 2003 Act—but nothing has gone far enough.

I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lester. I would like to see what is good in each set of amendments put together. Therefore, I hope that the Opposition and the Government will get together after Report and thrash out what would be the best of everything and get that into one list that could go into Third Reading. I do not think that the Government go quite far enough. A great deal of what the Opposition are saying is exactly what we need, but it all needs to be put together. Certainly, the most important thing is that it should go to the single family court and be tried by High Court or circuit judges who have specialist family experience.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much agree with the noble and learned Baroness. In doing so, I ask the Minister to give thought to taking away the government amendment to come back at Third Reading with a composite amendment that deals with the two issues that my noble friend related in moving the amendment. The issue of definition is as important as the issue of where this matter is located in law. There is concern out there that the definition that we have may not comply with the World Health Organization definition; even if it does, the way in which it was formulated in the 2003 Act, because of where we were then, is not clear enough to the whole range of professionals. As my noble friend identified, a number of health bodies, even in their own guidance, are telling their practitioners that reinfibulation does not come within the definition of female genital mutilation in the current Act. That has to be dealt with. I welcome the Government’s approach to looking further at what we need to do in the Bill. We have an opportunity here to ensure that we get things right, and the definition is one important issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I intended to put my name to this amendment, which I support. It seems to me that it is more important as a deterrent than probably for prosecutions. Among the various groups that exist—one hopes that they are a really small minority—as the noble Baroness just said, it is very important that the English law is made absolutely clear, as well as the law of Islam. Of course, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, just said, this occurs across other religions. That deterrent has, in other areas, quite a useful effect on culture, and that seems to me the most important part of this. I suspect that there will be very few prosecutions, but what is said in English law may permeate through a number of groups where those who disapprove of this already would then be able to point to the fact that it was also contrary to English law, and those who might want to get involved in this would be deterred from actually supporting it. I, too, support this amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, towards the end of her speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, referred to what was troubling me, which is whether we are talking about general encouragement—if I can put it that way—or encouragement to commit a specific offence. Like, I suspect, those in the conversations she had just before coming into the Chamber, I am puzzled by the presentation of the amendment as meaning general encouragement, because I do not read it that way either. With the wording, “to commit an offence”—a specific offence—I thought that the noble Baroness was getting to grips with what is meant by “promotion”, which was the bit that I found difficult to get my head around in terms of its application in the predecessor amendment. However, the noble Baroness told us that it is the reference to “the other or others”—in the plural—which changes that. Bluntly, I do not follow that. I hope that, when she winds up, the noble Baroness will be able to convince me. The offence of FGM might surely and not unusually be committed by more than one person in the case of a single girl. That was certainly how I read this. It is not about committing offences; I read the provision as being about a particular, specific victim.

Of course, I do not take issue with the noble Baroness about the cultural problems and so on. However, I hope that my noble friend will convince the House that this is covered by the Serious Crime Act 2007, with its Part 2 on encouraging or assisting crime. There are extensive provisions in that part. If that applies, then I would not be particularly keen on having a specific offence when it should be covered by the general provisions. It is better that the general should apply to all criminal offences and not have something separate which actually does not amount to anything different. It is the difference that I am looking for.